1. Weigh 9 pounds water at 95 degrees and add to mixer bowl.2. Open bag of Shakey’s Thin Crust 25# bag and pour into bowl.3. Attach dough hook to mixer, raise bowl.4. Mix on speed #1 for 7 minutes.5. Remove dough from bowl and place in 2 tubs and cover.6. Punch dough down when doubled in size.7. Place covered tubs immediately in cooler.

I tried another experiment this weekend based on the information from Elsegundo. I attempted to make a Shakey's type crust at home using the following recipe to make a 30 ounce dough

KA Bread flour 100%sugar 1.25salt 1.75oil 495 degree water 45yeast .75I know the particular measurements may not be exact, but they are close...probably except for the water which I increased just to make easier.So, I added the water and oil to the bowl, added all the dry ingredients and mixed in my Kitchen AID for 7 minutes. Let the dough rise at room temp for 1 hour 45 minutes. Punched the dough down, wrapped up the bowl and refrigerated for 21 hours. Took dough out for 2 hours to warm a bit, and then proceeded to roll out a single thin sheet. I then folded this sheet into thirds and then into halves so I had a six layer piece of dough. I then sheeted this dough out as thin as I could. It was tough!! I spent alot of my time letting the dough rest. When I got to the point where I couldn't get it thinner...I just stopped and cut out 3 skins and refrigerated them for 4 hours. I then took the skins out of the refrigerator, and took my rolling pin to them because they were entirely too thick. When I was done..(and this was very easy), I had 8 inch skins weighing about 6.6 ounces. I topped the skins and baked in a 580 degree deck.

I have to say, I really didn't hold much hope for these skins.....the sheets were so tough to roll out, that I thought the skins would be tough when cooked.....but much to my surprise, and to the delight of my brother, the pizzas were fantastic. I don't think they were worth the work...but it does prove, these types of skins can be made at home .

You mentioned about the dough rising but I do not see any yeast in the dough formulation. Did you forget to list the yeast or were you trying for the original Shakey's dough that, as I understand it, did not contain yeast?

Thanks for your contribution on this and other pizza matters. It is always nice to have a professional working at the same level as those of us who are home pizza grunts.

PeterThanks for catching the yeast ommission....I did have yeast and modified the original post. Today, while I was rolling dough I had a thought for an experiment....I took a hunk of my own dough, which had sat for 1.5 hours, punched it down and refrigerated it, and tomorrow I will take it out and laminate it...this should replicate the Shakey's method pretty well...I'll then cook a couple pizzas side by side to see how noticable a difference it makes on a crust to laminate before you refrigerate or after.

I let the dough rest and rise at room temperature for about 2.5 hours before putting it in an old bread bag and putting it in the refrigerator for 3 days.

After 3 days, I took the dough out and let it sit at room temperature for about 3 hours before rolling it out. I used a simply rolling pin technique, no layering as John as mentioned above. It was quite stiff and hard to roll out.

Skin was dressed with some sauce I had already made that consisted of 2 parts Hunts tomato sauce, 1 part Bonta pizza sauce/paste, generic Italian seasoning, fennel seed, salt, and garlic powder.

My second experiment was based on the information elsegundo provided along with my experience in making a Round Table pizza clone from a recipe that Lydia provided in the forum using Quaker Oats Harina Preparada flour tortilla mix. The dough recipe for this experiment, and my next one, was as follows:

I added some additional shortening, sugar, and salt. Why? To me, it seemed like the right thing to do based on elsegundo's posted ingredients for the Shakey's pizza dough flour and the ingredients of the harina preparada. How did I come up with those amounts? I guessed.

This batch made 2 dough balls, which were initially treated the same way as the dough in my first experiment. I took one dough ball out of the refrigerator after 3 days and left the other one in the fridge for experiment number 3. This dough ball rolled out noticeably easier than the first one, no doubt due to the higher fat (shortening) content of the tortilla flour and the added shortening.

Sauce and cheese were the same as the first pizza. Topping was only mushrooms. Cooked on the same stone as the pizza in my first experiment. Results below (again, ignore the screen).

For experiment number 3 which I made on Saturday, March 20, I took the dough ball out of the refrigerator after 7 days and let sit at room temperature for about 6 hours. As with the previous experiments, I did no punching down of the dough, nor did I try any layering technique - just rolled it out with a rolling pin. Again, this dough ball rolled out better than my first experiment, and maybe a tad better than my second.

Again, no docking of the dough. I used the same sauce as my previous experiments. This time, spread the sauce all the way to the edges.I added freshly grated parmesan to the cheeses over the top of the pizza, and for the mozzarella I used have skim milk mozz (Kraft) and half whole milk mozz (Polly-O). Toppings were tomatos and crimini mushrooms.

Since I had a recent experience at a Shakey's, I had a much better memory reference for what the pizza tasted like. This experiment came the closest to me in terms of taste. As near as I could tell, the addition of the parmesan cheese made a difference. I'm not sure if the extra 4 days in the refrigerator made a difference. Something else I noticed in the taste of this pizza that made it closer to a real Shakey's pizza was taking the sauce all the way to the edge and having the crust become just slightly burnt. That mix of the flavors, with the cheese, really seemed to strike a chord with my taste-buds.

I have to say although I would have been all accepting of the whole sheeter/layering technique as a key to duplicating this pizza, with this clone I don't think it would have made a difference. One thing I do wish I had to work with is a better oven. I tried the heating the soapstone on the upper rack for an hour first before moving it and placing the pizza on the stone, but I don't think it helped very much. Five hundred degrees Fahrenheit is just not enough, in my opinion, and we had snow on the first day of Spring so I couldn't go outside and crank up my gas grill with my 2stone.

I plan to try some more experimenting and tweaking with both recipes as we await the final chapter of the Shakey's pizza clone saga, but overall I am very pleased. I have since bought some ADY and will try using it next time, although I'm not expecting much difference.

I am here to report some good news and some bad news. As some of you know I am a pizza professional..this is not to say that I know everything about pizza, simply that I make my living selling pizza. Having said that, I am not ashamed to say that pizza consumes my life...techniques, ingredients, you name it, it's on my mind. Having said that, I learned to roll dough 36 years ago, and I was taught to roll the dough after it had risen and was still warm. I always knew that Shakey's let their dough sit in the walkin overnight before rolling, and I even attempted this method a couple times and was not that happy with the results.....but....I now know from reading Elsegundo's posts, that the proper procedure is to let the dough double, punch down and thenput the dough in the refrigerator. So, it is this process..more than the specific dough ingredients which really interested me. And so my experiment started....two days ago I took a hunk of risen cracker dough, refrigerated it overnight, took out the next day about 2 hours before sheeting and then proceeded to laminate it. I cut out a few skins and refrigerated them until I used them the same night. Here are a couple pics of the results.

The pizza in the previous post is a delicious, tender, crisp piece of heaven. The texture of it reminded me of the time I did a lamination experiment, and got up to 36 layers...it was almost a delicate texture if that means anything. The bad news is that rolling this dough even on a heavy duty sheeter was very taxing to the machine...and this is why it was so damned hard to attempt it by rolling pin.

After thinking about it a bit...of course the dough is tougher to roll because it has had 24 hours to develop. The pizza I rolled by hand a few days ago was delicous, but as I said at the time, it wasn't worth the effort.....what I meant by that statement is...it is possible to create a very similar texture and flavor at home by laminating the dough after it has risen and is warm.....believe me, it can be done if you are patient and give the dough plenty of time to rest.

Mad_Ernie, your pizzas are beautiful, I adore the looks of the bottoms especially. My question to you is how long are you mixing your dough? I guess my question is not that critical for you because you're not sheeting your dough until after it's refrigerated. John

Mad_Ernie, your pizzas are beautiful, I adore the looks of the bottoms especially. My question to you is how long are you mixing your dough? I guess my question is not that critical for you because you're not sheeting your dough until after it's refrigerated. John

John:

Nice pizza pics, btw.

Good question. I mixed my dough both times using a Cuisinart food processor and the dough blade attachment. I cannot say exactly how long, but I did give it plenty of mixing time to make sure the ingredients were well incorporated. This was especially true for my experiment # 1 using the dough formula more closely related to elsegundo's list of ingredients in order from greatest to least. The lack of moisture (and fat) compared to other doughs I normally make seemed to make this more necessary. I know Lydia in her Round Table pizza dough clone recipe instructs to mix just long enough to get the ingredients mixed. If I were to guess, I'd say I mixed the first dough ingredients for ~ 3 minutes, maybe slightly longer. The second dough using the harina preparada flour mix took a little less time, maybe ~2.5 minutes. Both doughs were left at room temperature for at least 2.5 hours, but I did not do any kneading or punching of the dough. I just sort of poured the mixture into plastic bags and formed them into a cohesive, ball-like shape.

Pardon my lack of familiarity on posting histories; particularly if this has all been covered before, I just haven’t wanted to entirely poison my Shakey’s recollections from other postings - not just yet. I’m trying to catch up now.

Is there a general consensus on a “best, most likely” Shakey’s dough recipe? If so, please repost chat or link for me.Otherwise, I’ve chosen Mad_Ernie’s trial per above as a starting point. Using this, here’s a random exercise I undertook while celebrating President’s Day… I’m just trying to create some fresh chatter on the subject.

Using my sketchy memory from doing prep at Shakey’s on the Rockville Pike (Rockville, MD), I’m trying to back into some of the same numbers used by Mad_Ernie and El_Segundo– all before I start testing recipes. This discussion is entirely based on how my store mixed bulk flour, water, compressed yeast, solid vegetable shortening and one Shakey’s dough mix bag, circa 1975.

I seem to recall weighing a 16 oz glob of solid shortening per batch (fairly sure) and using one 16 oz block of compressed yeast per batch (very sure). I don’t remember the flour or water weights, but I’m highly confident we used more than 9 lbs of water (which is just over one gallon). So, our final dough weight would have been heavier per batch than the current 25# premix bag plus 9 lbs water.Since my recollection is that our shortening and yeast were the same weight (I think), then they should also be the same by baker’s percent. In the above recipe, Mad_Earnie states that shortening is 2.5% and IDY is 0.75%. Firstly, I need to convert IDY to Compressed Yeast.

Comparing 2.25% yeast to 2.5% shortening means we’re at least in the same ballpark for shortening and yeast. For the moment, I’ll make them both 2.5% baker’s percent.

Since it’s fairly straight forward math using today’s premix recipe that a 25 lb bag of premix likely has a couple pounds of salt, sugar, IDY yeast and fat solids, it means the water ratio to flour is 9 lbs water per 23 lbs flour = 39% hydration which is close to Mad_Ernie’s 40% value. Close again.

Using a final dough ball weight of 34 lbs and cranking these numbers into the “Lehmann Pizza Dough Calculator” yields the following single batch results.

All good so far, but what about the fact that our store mixed larger batches than 34 pounds and split each batch between 5 bus tubs. How much did we rise in each tub? From previous postings that state a 34 pound batch is split into two, or 17 Lb per bus tub, then my final dough weight works out to 85 pounds. Could this be right? A 17 year old kid, dragging an 85 pound blob of dough out of a Hobart mixer bowl onto a prep-table single-handedly? I was 160 pounds at the time and strong legs. It was a struggle but I just don’t know. To test it, here’s another vague memory. We weighed our water in a pickle bucket on the monster-size balance beam scale by filling one bucket up with water and lugging it to the second bucket pouring until the scale balanced. Before doing any math I would have guessed 3 gallons went into the weighed bucket. Here’s the math…

Compare 3 gallons to the 2.7 gallon results of an 85 pound batch and it seems I’m close again. Result is that 85 lbs seems plausible and so 17 lbs per batch may be right.

So, there’s lots of assumptions here that would be validated with better information than I can recall, but I seem to be in the ball park. Challenge question: Could a 17 year old kid lug an 85 pound blob of dough out of a Hobart mixer bowl onto a prep table by himself? I think so – and if so - then 17 pounds per bus tub may be a consistent result between preparation methods (1975 versus now). It would be helpful to know weight per bus tub to replicate full-scale batch and rise and proof. Your thoughts? Math check?Lightmeter

Just chiming in here to say thanks to Lightmeter for all of his postings to-date and the assistance he has given those of us who still count ourselves as Shakey's fans from the old days.

Also thanks to DNA Dan for helping to keep this thread moving again. It's been way too long.

One thing I want to mention, just as a reminder, is that all of us on this and the cracker threads who have tried to clone or emulate what certain commercial pizza restaurants have done in the past with this type of low-hydration pizza dough have generally found that we lack one key piece of equipment (which DNA Dan was fortunate to purchase a while back): a sheeter.

Some of us have tried various attempts at emulating a sheeter, but there is no true substitute for the real thing when it comes to that piece of equipment. You can heat a good pizza stone at 550 degrees for an hour and come pretty close to generating the right amount of floor heat, but a sheeter does a form of physics magic in compressing the dough that no rolling pin can duplicate. I think it was elsegundo who tried using a pasta sheeter, creating a couple sheets of dough and then sort of connecting them. I have tried that, too, but it is still far from ideal, in my opinion.

I only bring this up because I know we've been down this road before I don't want anyone's hopes to get too high before realizing you need to spend a few $$$$ to really clone a pizza crust like Shakey's. That doesn't even touch on the sauce issue (which is probably even more difficult to determine, at least in the amounts of the spices and herbs).

I don't want to discourage anyone. In fact, I have learned something each time someone has tried a Shakey's clone experiment. I'm just sayin' ...

Have you ever tried something similar to your Round Table pizza clone technique in making a Shakey's pizza, either in formula or layered crusts? My memory with Shakey's is not great, but from what I have seen of more recent Shakey's pizzas, it seems RT still has a little more puffiness to the crust. However, to emulate what a sheeter does, I have found your technique excellent for cloning RT's and so I wondered if you have taken it to the next level with Shakey's clone.

Having done considerable interpretation and analysis of posts from elsegundo and lightmeter (both in this thread and other Shakey’s threads), as well as at least one post from Old Shakeys Cop in another thread, here are some of my conclusions about Shakey’s dough formula, which I’ve already been thinking about for a year without much reason to change anything.

Based mostly on the information in this thread's original post (as well as elsegundo's picture of the dough mix bag in a more recent thread, which confirms everything he says in the original post), my interpretation is that the Shakey’s dough mix contains something in the neighborhood of:

22.96 lbs Flour16 oz Shortening7 oz Sugar6.5 oz Salt3.2 oz IDY

If you add up all the ingredient weights above, it comes out to exactly 25 lbs, just like the weight listed on the bag. I listed the ingredients in this order because this is the order listed on the bag. Also, as you may have already assumed, I was careful to make sure the ingredients listed earlier are more abundant than ingredients listed later. When you add 9 lbs of water to this list, you end up with the following dough formula:

100% Flour39.2% Water0.87% IDY1.77% Salt4.36% Shortening1.91% Sugar

I originally decided to include a pound of shortening specifically after reading lightmeter’s post at Reply #88 (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,518.msg123472.html#msg123472) of the Shakey’s sauce thread. Even though he has since written posts that indicate each dough batch may have been heavier (which effectively decreases the shortening percentage if the shortening weight remains the same), he originally estimated that each batch of dough weighed about 35 lbs, which is consistent with the batch weight produced by this dough mix (34 lbs).

In addition to elsegundo’s incredible detective work, I have found both lightmeter and Old Shakeys Cop’s information to be very reliable and trustworthy, as I’m sure nearly everyone else has, because their information makes sense, even though they don’t always say the exact same things. Here’s what we know from Old Shakeys Cop’s recipe:

If the full 8 quarts of water is used, the water weight comes to 16.68 lbs, which makes the hydration percentage 39.71%.

“1 lb block of yeast” indicates that Shakey’s used compressed yeast (at the time), and that the yeast percentage was 2.38%. (The dough mix of today most certainly does not contain compressed yeast. Rather, it almost certainly contains IDY.)

1-3/4 lbs of shortening is 28 oz, which constitutes 4.17% of the total flour weight of this batch.

I don’t know the proper conversion rate for compressed yeast to IDY, but I know it ends up being pretty close to the IDY figure I came up with for the dough mix bag. When divided by 3 (which I believe is the accepted conversion math for these two types of yeast), 2.38% CY equates to about 0.79% IDY.

So Old Shakey’s Cop’s recipe tells us this much about the dough formula:

OK, so that’s nearly identical to the formula I calculated by using elsegundo’s dough mix bag, as follows:

100% Flour39.2% Water0.87% IDY4.36% Shortening

Old Shakeys Cop’s information does not account for either salt or sugar, but I feel safe estimating that the salt must be in the neighborhood of 1.75% and the sugar is probably about 2% (or possibly a little less). If I’m a little wrong with either of these ingredients, it’s not a big deal, because there’s no way I’m wrong by much. And even if I am a little wrong, it’s not a big deal because I’d have to be considerably wrong for it to make a very noticeable difference in either the taste or performance of this dough/crust.

I came up with these two dough formulas completely independent of each other, yet they are nearly identical. Also, they’re very similar to Mad Ernie’s Shakey’s dough formula, as well as the formula lightmeter came up with by using his own inside knowledge. Yet my formulas do have a couple differences. The main differences are that my formulas are heavier on the fat and salt than Mad Ernie and lightmeter’s formulas.

Interestingly, though, my formula is very similar to fazzari’s formula, with two small exceptions. Fazzari uses a little less sugar and a good bit more water. However, knowing fazzari’s work, I’m guessing he added several percent to his initial hydration figure estimate specifically in an effort to reflect a formula that can more easily be done in a home setting. That is, I bet if he had written it for someone with commercial equipment, he would have said something like 38% water or 40% water.

Based on all this analysis, as well as my experience eating at Shakey’s (five times) and my experience making this style of pizza, I really do think the fat percentage of Shakey’s dough is in the neighborhood of 4.2% 4.4%, rather than 2%. Perhaps the salt percentage truly is just 1%, as reflected in ME and lightmeter’s formulas, but 1.75% always seems like pretty good default setting to me, for almost every pizza style.

One more thought:

While composing this post, I changed the IDY content for the dough mix bag (at the top) from 4 oz to 3.2 oz. Here’s why: Although I haven’t seen it lately, I’m pretty sure someone (maybe Jet_deck) posted a more recent picture of a Shakey’s dough mix bag, which had a listed weight of 24.8 lbs. I don’t know if anyone has speculated about why it changed from 25 lbs to 24.8 lbs, but it makes sense to me that they may have removed yeast from the dough mix. If that’s true, then it stands to reason that the missing 0.2 lbs could account for yeast, as yeast surely performs better when stored properly and left out of the dough mix until it’s needed.

However, I’m not sure if yeast is listed as an ingredient on the 24.8-lb bag of dough mix. If yeast is listed as an ingredient (which I suspect it is), then everything I said in the previous paragraph can probably be ignored.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Could this be right? A 17 year old kid, dragging an 85 pound blob of dough out of a Hobart mixer bowl onto a prep-table single-handedly? I was 160 pounds at the time and strong legs. It was a struggle but I just don’t know.

I doubt it. Here’s why: On February 14, 2010, I began a very long walk, carrying a very heavy backpack more than a few thousand miles across vast deserts and whatnot. My pack sometimes weighed as much as 68 lbs, or possibly even 70 lbs (but certainly not more than 70 lbs). When I began the walk, I was already in very good shape, and I probably weighed about 140 lbs.

On the rare occasion that I needed to carry enough food and water to make my pack weigh 68 lbs, I could barely pick up the pack. It wasn’t too difficult to carry the 68 lbs once I was able to pick it up and secure it to my body, but it was nearly impossible for me to lift it. If the pack had been any heavier, I wouldn’t have been able to lift it. Also, when the pack was that heavy, it usually took me several attempts before I could successfully lift it all the way to my shoulders.

It’s much easier to lift a 68-pound Gregory backpack than it is to lift 68 lbs of pizza dough. Pizza dough has no handles or ergonomics; it’s just a big lump of dough. I estimate that in 2010 I could have lifted maybe 50 lbs of pizza dough, even though I was capable of lifting around 70 lbs of backpack. There’s a good chance the 17-year-old, 160-pound lightmeter was capable of lifting a lot more dough than the 140-pound Ryan was able to lift, but I feel pretty confident speculating that 85 lbs of dough would have been out of the question. Maybe an 85-pound backpack, but not 85 lbs of dough.

Besides, according to Hobart’s own specs (http://www.hobart.ca/spec-selector/assets/pdf/F-7701.pdf), a standard 60-quart Hobart mixer can only handle 40 lbs of stiff dough, and even a heavy duty 60-quart Hobart mixer can only handle 60 lbs of stiff dough (as long as the mixer stays on speed 1). The 80-quart Hobart mixer can handle 85 lbs of stiff dough, but my experience says it’s uncommon for even busy pizzerias to use 80-quart mixers. I worked at four different Pizza Hut units in the early 90s, and all of them had 60-quart mixers. All Pizza Hut dough was made of 25-pounds of dough mix, plus water.

For whatever this may be worth, Old Shakeys Cop’s dough formula makes 63 lbs of dough, which is barely doable with the heavy duty 60-quart Hobart mixer. Split into 5, that makes five bus tubs full of approximately 12.6-pound chunks of dough.

Also, lightmeter's original estimate of the Shakey's dough batch weight was 35 lbs. Going from 35 lbs to 85 lbs is a big leap. (Even going from 35 to 63 is a big leap.) Also, the 35-pound estimate didn't seem to change until other people's posts began to influence his thinking. I'm not saying I don't believe lightmeter, or anything like that. Rather, I'm saying I'm more inclined to believe lightmeter's own memories than I am inclined to believe memories that have possibly been tainted by non-memories. And judging by things lightmeter has said, I'm inclined to think he probably understands where I'm coming from.

In case I haven't been clear, I want to make it really clear that I value lightmeter's posts a whole bunch, as well as everyone else I've mentioned in these last two posts.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

I have some other observations to report, which I felt didn’t belong in my previous post but which I think are still very worthy of being mentioned.I doubt it. Here’s why: On February 14, 2010, I began a very long walk, carrying a very heavy backpack more than a few thousand miles across vast deserts and whatnot. My pack sometimes weighed as much as 68 lbs, or possibly even 70 lbs (but certainly not more than 70 lbs). When I began the walk, I was already in very good shape, and I probably weighed about 140 lbs.

On the rare occasion that I needed to carry enough food and water to make my pack weigh 68 lbs, I could barely pick up the pack. It wasn’t too difficult to carry the 68 lbs once I was able to pick it up and secure it to my body, but it was nearly impossible for me to lift it. If the pack had been any heavier, I wouldn’t have been able to lift it. Also, when the pack was that heavy, it usually took me several attempts before I could successfully lift it all the way to my shoulders.

It’s much easier to lift a 68-pound Gregory backpack than it is to lift 68 lbs of pizza dough. Pizza dough has no handles or ergonomics; it’s just a big lump of dough. I estimate that in 2010 I could have lifted maybe 50 lbs of pizza dough, even though I was capable of lifting around 70 lbs of backpack. There’s a good chance the 17-year-old, 160-pound lightmeter was capable of lifting a lot more dough than the 140-pound Ryan was able to lift, but I feel pretty confident speculating that 85 lbs of dough would have been out of the question. Maybe an 85-pound backpack, but not 85 lbs of dough.

Besides, according to Hobart’s own specs (http://www.hobart.ca/spec-selector/assets/pdf/F-7701.pdf), a standard 60-quart Hobart mixer can only handle 40 lbs of stiff dough, and even a heavy duty 60-quart Hobart mixer can only handle 60 lbs of stiff dough (as long as the mixer stays on speed 1). The 80-quart Hobart mixer can handle 85 lbs of stiff dough, but my experience says it’s uncommon for even busy pizzerias to use 80-quart mixers. I worked at four different Pizza Hut units in the early 90s, and all of them had 60-quart mixers. All Pizza Hut dough was made of 25-pounds of dough mix, plus water.

For whatever this may be worth, Old Shakeys Cop’s dough formula makes 63 lbs of dough, which is barely doable with the heavy duty 60-quart Hobart mixer. Split into 5, that makes five bus tubs full of approximately 12.6-pound chunks of dough.

Also, lightmeter's original estimate of the Shakey's dough batch weight was 35 lbs. Going from 35 lbs to 85 lbs is a big leap. (Even going from 35 to 63 is a big leap.) Also, the 35-pound estimate didn't seem to change until other people's posts began to influence his thinking. I'm not saying I don't believe lightmeter, or anything like that. Rather, I'm saying I'm more inclined to believe lightmeter's own memories than I am inclined to believe memories that have possibly been tainted by non-memories. And judging by things lightmeter has said, I'm inclined to think he probably understands where I'm coming from.

In case I haven't been clear, I want to make it really clear that I value lightmeter's posts a whole bunch, as well as everyone else I've mentioned in these last two posts.

Great detective work!!!It really doesn't matter how big the batch is in the bowl...all one has to do is pull it out in pieces and either put it in a giant plastic can, or separate into bus tubs or whatever.

You make a very good point about splitting the dough up into smaller pieces, but lightmeter's description made it sound to me like they carried the entire batch of dough from the mixer to the table in one piece.

If I'm not mistaken, I seem to recall you saying recently that you make something like 400 lbs of dough a day at work. If so, I could see an 80-quart mixer being pretty appropriate. Do you mind revealing the size of your mixer? Or if I mis-remembered what you said, would you mind correcting me?

Also, I really like your take on sheeting dough while it's warm, right after the bulk-fermented dough doubles, rather than putting it in the cooler and sheeting it the next day when it's still cold (particularly your remark about how the sheeter service guy said he keeps having to service the sheeter of some other guy who makes a similar laminated crust but sheets the dough after refrigerating). I've been looking forward to trying that with one of my laminated pizzas (and a rolling pin), but pizza is just not allowed right now, and probably won't be for weeks, if not months. I'll try it eventually, though.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

You make a very good point about splitting the dough up into smaller pieces, but lightmeter's description made it sound to me like they carried the entire batch of dough from the mixer to the table in one piece.

If I'm not mistaken, I seem to recall you saying recently that you make something like 400 lbs of dough a day at work. If so, I could see an 80-quart mixer being pretty appropriate. Do you mind revealing the size of your mixer? Or if I mis-remembered what you said, would you mind correcting me?

Also, I really like your take on sheeting dough while it's warm, right after the bulk-fermented dough doubles, rather than putting it in the cooler and sheeting it the next day when it's still cold (particularly your remark about how the sheeter service guy said he keeps having to service the sheeter of some other guy who makes a similar laminated crust but sheets the dough after refrigerating). I've been looking forward to trying that with one of my laminated pizzas (and a rolling pin), but pizza is just not allowed right now, and probably won't be for weeks, if not months. I'll try it eventually, though.

RyanWe use a 140 quart hobart....I'm telling ya, 36% dough is hard on a mixer, and even tougher on a sheeter!John